


The Body's Intelligence Could Rival the Mind's

by YesBothWays



Series: The Body's Intelligence Could Rival The Mind's [5]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story from Delphine's perspective set just as the season finale ends.  This story centers on the show's main theme of sisterhood and tries to explore why Delphine would remain excluded from this for so long, and it finally resolves that conflict.  That aspect of the narrative explains "why" she survives being shot.  This is a strange, psychological-spiritual story, and the initial idea was inspired by Tobias Wolff's short story "Bullet In The Brain."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Body's Intelligence Could Rival the Mind's

            It seemed that the cold could seep up into Delphine's body without resistance like water moving through a cloth. She felt as if her body lacked real substance, any ability to keep it out. More frightening still than this, she felt a heat spreading underneath her, across her back. She knew that it was her own blood. The edge of it felt vivid as it crept along her skin, a border between a deep heat and an absolute cold. She felt that same heat in one hand. Yet she felt herself strangely aware of the smooth, hard surface of the concrete beneath her other hand, against her fingertips. A trickle of air came into her lungs, finally, and she felt that she gasped. Her mind remained fixated on the feel of the hard, cold surface under her fingertips.

           The image of what she touched came into her mind. The material became a clear image of broken glass. She held a hand mirror, an antique. She sat on a narrow bed and glanced over to the edge of a trunk at the foot of it. The top of the trunk read _Cormier_ in painted, golden lettering. Bits of glass still lay upon it, where the surface of the mirror had been smashed against the corner of the trunk. Sun poured in through the window with its high, austere curtains. Delphine ran her fingers over the lines of the glass, as if searching to know them. While other girls would see their reflection, in Delphine's mind, she saw the manufacturing of the precise and refined layers of glass and metal that she held in her hands. She did not understand how she could still find them beautiful.

            The feel of edges, sharp and flowing, were in her own body now. Delphine attempted merely to draw in her breath. The air seemed to paint the shape in her mind of splintering, brokenness. Instead of the hard edges of a mirror, she found her own body was shattered now. She regretted how frail it had proven itself to be. She regretted that she was made of such soft tissues. This quality had left her poised ever at the greatest of risk. She saw in her mind one, small piece of soft metal and felt how it had rent the fabric of her body. It had damaged her, cut a trail that ruptured a multitude cells, split them with the greatest of ease.

            She saw thick lines that intersected. She recognized it as the bars of metal over a light in the ceiling. She felt some meaning in their shape. Someone was calling for her. Her mind grew distracted for a moment. The image overlapped with that of a cell, as it split down the middle in order to divide itself. Both halves were made smaller, before they then grew again, both together and now each with a life of their own. There were more lines forming in her mind now. Someone was calling for her. She tried to concentrate, felt her brows tighten, even as she tried to draw her mind away from the cold beneath her hand.

            She thought she understood the cold then and felt a sense of relief. The lines became the six-point prism of a snowflake. Delphine saw them in her mind, even without a microscope. Her hands were cold, because they had been in the snow for so many hours. They had been out here playing in the snow all day. They were too excited even to feel their hunger much, as it came and passed. Somehow, just now, the world was made even more beautiful. Something about the light in this moment.

            Lyra had a pile of snow on her shoulders, lining the hood of her coat and her scarf. She looked like an Ice Queen from a story. Delphine reminded her all about the story, as Lyra listened intently to her sister's voice. She wished that she had a mirror to show her the image of herself in the snow. They were unwilling to go inside, even for a moment, as they had been all day.

            Now, their mother called to them. A form of epiphany washed over Delphine. The sun was setting. The light had been made beautiful by the angle of the sun, and it would be gone over the horizon very soon. It was nearly gone now. Their mother's voice came unexpectedly. Delphine faced a moment that felt entirely irrational. The day would end within a few moments. They would take the train back to school tomorrow. She had forgotten somehow, enamored of the snow. She had forgotten that this day would end. Somehow, the feel of the cold in her body and the beauty of the snow made her forget. Delphine stood astonished, for she had forgotten about time.  

            Now, she must lead Lyra back to the house. They would take the train tomorrow. Lyra would cry on the train, as she did everytime they went back to school. Delphine would hold onto her. She would sing her a song. That would make her grow quieter. Delphine knew already what it would all be like tomorrow. Then the snow had come unexpectedly. She had forgotten. She took Lyra's hand to lead her home. For the first time, the cold in their hands felt to her like pain.

            The voice kept calling. Delphine felt her brow tightened. What did they want? She could not help them. _Will you sing me a song?_ she remembered a voice saying to her. The memory of the voice came vivid and clear. She felt it close by, recent and not remote. Cosima, she remembered the sound of it on her own lips, as she whispered it in the dark. She felt herself begin to cry, as she remembered what she had answered her when she asked. _I cannot sing._

            Delphine could not see the ceiling now, as the outline of a face blocked the light. The voice that called to her came again, shot through with fear now. She felt herself turned over and something stuffed beneath her. Then a thick, heavy material of some kind pressed into her side. She heard a woman's voice screaming. The voice told that she was in pain. Delphine struggled to concentrate, to listen, now to this other voice. It sounded like her sister's voice.

            Perfect lines of unbroken glass sat before her eyes. The image of them captured both her mind and her heart. They filled a wooden tray of nine across, and they each held a substance. They sat in shades of color ranging from blue to green to yellow to red. They were a marvel to see. And she had made them.

            She realized she did not know what to do now. So she looked up. The other students were still working. Many of them had substances of the wrong color, the wrong pattern. She felt anxious, then, that perhaps her own were incorrect. Yet they looked so perfect in their line, set into the tray. They must be correct.  

            Carefully, she lifted them, along with her clipboard. She brought them to Mademoiselle Angevine's desk. Her teacher looked at them first, before she looked at Delphine. She smiled at Delphine in surprise and pride, and Delphine smiled in response. She came in close to whisper to her, "Go get Madame Chatelain, so she can come and see."

            As Delphine closed the door behind her, she felt almost afraid of walking down the hall and finding the principal. She thought her own fear had made her silly when she heard a girl's voice cry out in pain. Then she knew it was her sister and knew that it was real.

            Delphine opened the door to the principal's office without knocking first. Madame Chatelain stood there with her arms crossed. She seemed severe and still. Madame Deloy held Lyra by the wrist, and she struck Lyra's hand with a hard reed. They counted backwards during punishments, and she said seven, as she struck Lyra's hand again. Lyra cried out in pain. Seven more would come. Delphine came forward into the room.

            "Here, let me have some of them," Delphine said. Both women were surprised at her sudden presence.

            "No, no, Delphine," Madame Deloy said. "You have done nothing wrong." Delphine merely stood, as she held her hand out beside her sister's hand. She looked up at both adults. Madame Chatelain shook her head.

            "Children do not understand, Madame Deloy," Madame Chatelain said. This meant something Delphine could not understand. She stood and waited. Her sister gripped her shirt in the back, she could feel, like she did when the two of them got into some kind of trouble together.

            Madame Deloy looked very unhappy to Delphine, almost as if she were in some pain. She sat down the reed on the table. She stood rigid and silent for a moment.

            "You know that you are bad?" Madame Deloy said to Lyra.

            "Yes," Lyra said from behind Delphine.

            "That is enough then," Madame Deloy said.

            The two women ushered the girls out into the hall, as they assumed they would go back to class when they were able. Lyra still wept in loud gasps that shook her body, all the way through. Delphine considered leading Lyra down the hall to the bathroom. She did not know who would be there. So she led her outside into the empty courtyard.

            Delphine led them to the fountain at its center and looked in. Leaves floated on the surface of the water. Delpine saw how some leaves had already become dust in the water, as trails of black sediment lifted up from the bottom of the basin in chains, suspended by their remaining buoyancy as they disintegrated. The water surrounding these debris looked quite clear.

            Delphine held Lyra's hand in her own on the wide, smooth rim of the fountain. She cupped the cold water in her other hand and poured it over the red welts in Lyra's palm, over and over again. A song might bring someone out to find them, but Delphine hummed to her slightly. Lyra's tears died back, and she grew quiet. She stood up straight and looked nearly as strong and silent as Delphine, when they finally finished and went to go back inside.

            The cold on her hands came from water, clearly. Delphine saw now from whence the cold within herself had come. She felt the river under her hands. She had been mistaken before. Her palms touched to the surface of the river, near its edge, she could see by the length of the waves, still short. They were tipped with light. The water moved dark beneath, yet still it was lit from someplace above her. She had not been standing in the water for long, because she could feel the cold of the water moving into her even now. At first, she thought it might pull at her body, as she had always known it do before. Yet now, as it washed into her, it also washed through. She felt its movement through her. Her body seemed without substance. She had quite forgotten this.

            She felt herself moving then. She lost her sight of the water, though she knew it must still be there. Someone had lifted her. She felt herself moving through air. She felt without weight. A voice kept saying her name, but she did not know this woman's voice. She felt gravity return to her. Compared with her memory, it seemed to press down on her more lightly somehow than it always had before. That felt impossible and also beyond deduction, so she tried to ignore it. A terrible fear came upon her, then, as she felt gravity consolidated, and a terrible weight came upon her, pressing into her side.

            She saw the water before her again. She had found it. She did not know how she had grown distracted. She could not see Lyra. Yet she felt that she was there. She knew that she was.

            Delphine did not look up from the water when she heard her voice. "Where is the woman you had in your heart?" Lyra said. She was concerned. "I lost her," Delphine said. She knew Lyra would feel sad at this. Delphine felt herself grow ashamed. Yet the water still invited her. Lyra would not reject her for her failures. For she loved Delphine endlessly. The river invited her to come away from all the rest of this world. And yet it would not take her away from Lyra.

            The cold from the water washed through her hands and the bones in her legs. It seemed to press at her chest. Perhaps the air held there kept it out. She felt it pushed back. She felt it then, as the cold of the water came into her mouth. Still it caught at her chest, as if some gate held it back. She felt her mouth held open, quite soft and yielding. Yet her chest pressed the water back.

            The memory of a voice came into her mind. It disrupted her peace utterly. _She died because you were so cold_. Her mind struggled to identity this voice. She knew it. She could not be certain whose it was. It might have been Lyra's, or her mother's. It might have been Cosima's or even a woman named Sarah's voice. She thought it might have been her own voice speaking to her. She listened so hard that it drew her away from the water. She did not want the river to muffle her ears. She wanted to listen, to recognize the voice that told her why she was bad. She wanted to know enough to decide whether it spoke of an objective truth.

            The cold was distracting her from listening. The cold proved itself beyond her, beyond the mind's capacity for discipline. The deep of the cold found out every part of her body, found its way in to touch each part of her and beyond this, to become absorbed by each cell. She felt that it become so immense, it had a weight. The cold inside of her now felt much like the sensation of falling. She recognized the darkness and the cold for a moment as that of a plane moving over the Atlantic in the middle of the night. She had been sent away again. And Cosima was dying. Nothing would stop her from dying now. Her own fear could not set her free or give her any power to shape the future.

            A heat came into her hands now. She felt it terribly distracting. Delphine saw two people over her. She did not know them. They were afraid for her. She saw that one held up a bag filled with dark blood. She felt this pour into her. The blood moved like a heat through her body. It seemed to pool in her hands.

            Delphine saw then Cosima bent over in front of her. She saw her back shaking. The physicians were coming to them. But they had to wait. So she knelt down in front of Cosima. She reached and put her hands over Cosima's, as they held a towel against her mouth. Delphine urged her to draw it away. She held it in her own hands now, heavy and hot with blood. She sat it aside and got another that looked pale and pristine in comparison.

            She heard the faint rasping of Cosima's struggle to breath. She looked up at Delphine. Only her eyes gave any indication that she was afraid. But she was afraid. Delphine saw Cosima's lips trembling. She felt then that she was confused, and it was her own lips that were trembling. And they were cold. Delphine lay astonished, for she had forgotten about the cold.

            Meanwhile, the cold had deepened and made her brittle. She shook and knew that she would break easily. Her own shaking would break her now. Nothing could change this. The dark of the water swallowed her and came against her eyes.

            Lightening stuck her body. Once. It moved through her heart. A white light, a pure light that could splinter reality and re-sort the threads of time. Rage touched every cell and redefined the shape of her body. _I should have killed you_ , she heard a voice say. She knew it was her own voice this time. She did fully want to recognize it for its anger had made it so changed. A scientist should not give in to irrational emotion.

            Delphine remembered her father's voice sounded as altered as this once. _You have taken her letter!_ he screamed in an anguish that distorted his voice such that Delphine wished that she could not recognize it as his. This was all utterly unreasonable. Even if it were true, he would never find any evidence. There was no possibility for science, not to shape this. _There was no letter!_ her mother's voice repeated again without any vulnerability. Delphine stood alone in her own room. She tried to sort just one, reasonable thought. Finally it came to her. _My sister is dead._

            Who were these people then? Delphine realized that she was not alone in the room. Bodies were crowded in around her. They ought to leave her in peace, she thought in annoyance. They ought to stop calling her name.

 _I did not save her_ , Delphine thought then. This thought took on a life of its own. This moved out of her mind and into her body. It was taken up with her heartbeat. She tried to close her eyes against the unforgiving brightness that surrounded her.

            She felt more at ease as the darkness returned. She stood now. She was not in water. She felt her body no longer permeated. And someone was in front of her. She knew her by her shape, though the light came from above where she could not see. The image of her was made by a line of light that defined her form like the shape of a wave on dark water. She could not see her face, but she knew, so very well, her shape. She would know her even in the dark, as she felt her form under her hands.

            And there were more behind her, like to her, but different. Delphine only recognized a few. They stretched back into the darkness with just enough light on them to define their shape and bring it to her sight. They stretched back until she could not see them and still there were more like waves.

            "There are many of us," Cosima explained to her. She waited for Delphine to say something, to respond. Her mind felt blank.

            "I am all alone," Delphine her own voice answer. Her voice seemed young, fragile, and less than rational. She knew she could not make herself otherwise. Her body defined her now. She felt without the usual safety of her mind.

            Cosima reached out her hand to Delphine. And Delphine willed herself to take it. Her body did not respond well to her desires. Finally, she lifted her hand and took hold of Cosima's. As their fingers entwined and their palms touched, Delphine felt against her hand neither cold nor heat. Instead, a living warmth came with the touch. It mingled there between them.

            She felt in the steady touch of her hand that Cosima was not afraid. Cosima led them. Delphine began to forget about the darkness all around them. She felt distant, far away from the cold water and from the river. She could not see Cosima's face, even though she knew she was there, for she held Delphine's hand still. Her own grasp on Cosima's hand remained steady, though she feared it might slip. A song she hummed to Lyra, so long ago, she hummed to calm herself, so she could continue to hold onto her hand follow Cosima now.

            Delphine recognized herself as awake. She realized that she did not know where she was. And she also did not know who else was there. She ought to try to feign unconsciousness until she knew, she thought. She barely turned her head to see the lines of the side rail of a hospital bed.

            She discerned the form of a woman seated beside the bed. She knew from the shape and feel of her that she did not know her. She heard through the monitor that tracked her heartbeat how it quickened. She wished she could slow it and hide that she was awake, but she could not. The woman noticed at once. She stood up and leaned in to see that Delphine eyes were open. There was no point in trying to hide.

            "Don't be scared, chicken," the woman said. "You're with family."

            The woman left her bedside. Delphine wished that she could think. She must be drugged, she realized. She felt that there was no pain in her body. She knew there should be. She turned to see if her hand moved, as she lifted it.

            Someone came and turned on a lamp. Delphine knew that it was Cosima, simply from how she moved in the room, even before she took Delphine's raised hand in both of her own. Delphine lay staring at their hands, and she heard in the pulse of the device that tracked her heartbeat how its pattern grew calm and strong.


End file.
